Wearing the Shamrock and
Wearing the Leek

From The Illustrated Dublin Journal, Volume 1, Number 27, March 8, 1862

WHAT a pity it is that the brilliant pedantry of the nineteenth century
should succeed in making "airy nothings" of many a notable fact and
quaint fancy which, from time immemorial, our ancestors learned to
regard as part of their persuasion? For example, take our old friend
Æsop. It is an indisputable fact that, if not altogether a
myth, he is certainly not the author of the instructive fables which
have been for so long attributed to him. The name of Babrius is one
which, for the last hundred and eighty years, has been gradually
becoming more and more significant to students of antiquity. That he
was a fabulist of one or other of the Greek classical periods, who
wrote in choliambic verse, was already evident from a few fragments
preserved by lexicographers and grammarians. But the first to make him
more than a name was the renowned Bentley, in a dissertation on the
supposed fables of Æsop, appended to the first draught of the
immortal work on Phalaris, and the researches of subsequent
commentators have entirely reduced the so-called "father of fable" to a
mere shadow, and shown that nearly all the substance which has invested
him, really belonged to Babrius. We regret to have our confidence in
Æsop thus rudely displaced, but what are we to say to the
averments of some modern antiquaries, asserting that there is not a
vestige of authority for the time-honoured tradition of the use made by
St. Patrick of the Shamrock, in explaining the mystery of the Holy
Trinity to King Laeghaire and his pagan subjects; and, moreover, that
the employment of the trefoil, as a national emblem, is unwarranted by
any authority whatever? Admitting the absence of any direct evidence on
the subject, it is but fair to inquire why the tradition should be
regarded as altogether untenable, seeing the natural intimate allusion
of the Shamrock to the fundamental doctrine of Christianity. Nothing in
our mind is more probable than that the evangeliser of Ireland proved
the existence of the Trinity by referring to the Shamrock. At any rate,
the tradition is a genial and a suggestive one, and it would be a pity
that it should ever fall into disrepute, since it furnishes Irishmen
with an emblem of fraternity, and is an oasis in that desert of
polemical and political strife, in which the fortunes of Ireland are
entombed.

The word Shamrock is derived from Seamhair,
pronounced "shamuir," clover; Seamhair
óg,
or Seamróg,
pronounced "shamrog," little clover. Such was the beauty and chasteness
of this emblem, that it formed one of the earliest ornaments in the
architecture of the twelfth or thirteenth century, and continued
throughout the successive changes and beauties of all that is
resplendent in the Gothic style. In the latter part of the last century
the trefoil was selected to become a conspicuous ornament in the
insignia of the Knights of the Order of St. Patrick, which was founded
by George III., in 1783; in 1801 it was introduced as the emblem for
Ireland, and with the Rose and Thistle, all springing from one stalk,
composes the badge for the United Kingdom. Among the ancients, Hope was
sometimes represented as a beautiful child, standing upon tip-toes, and
a trefoil, or three-coloured grass, in her hand. In one of the
"Melodies" Moore has introduced a very pretty conceit in allusion to
the Shamrock, describing a friendly contest between Love and Valour,
for its possession,

"But Wit perceives
The triple leaves,
And cries, "Oh! do not sever,
A type that blends
Three godlike friends--
Love, Valour, Wit, for ever!"

The seventeenth of the present month will be the anniversary of Saint
Patrick, and long may the "green, immortal Shamrock" on that day be the
chosen leaf by which Irishmen, of every creed and every party, will be
reminded of the deliverance of their native land from the thraldom of
Paganism, and the simple, but eloquent symbol from which they can
realize the ennobling tenets of Christianity.

The opening day of this month,
which Spenser describes as--

"Sturdy March, with brows full sternly bent,
And armed strongly,"

is a national anniversary with the Welsh, being the day of their patron
saint, David, or in Welsh, Dewid, son of Xantus, prince of
Cardiganshire, who preached with great fervour and success to the
Britons, and died in 544. The origin of the Leek as the badge of
Welshmen, on the first of March, is involved in much obscurity; there
is no evidence concerning it, if we except that of an old "broadside,"
which declares that, on a certain first of March, the Welshman, "joyned
with their foes," and, in order not to confound friends with them--

"Into a garden they did go,
Where each one pulled a leeke,"

which, wearing in their hats, they were thus enabled to recognise their
countrymen, "all who had no Leekes being slaine.'' To this tradition
Shakspeare refers, making Fluellen say, in ' Henry V.," "The Welshmen
did goot service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing Leeks in
their Monmouth caps." The more plausible supposition, however, is that
of Dr. Oliver Pughe, that it was derived from "the custom in the
Cymmortha, still observed in Wales, in which the farmers assist each
other in ploughing their land, on which occasion every one formerly
contributed his Leek to the common repast."

Probably the custom once had some religious association to which we
have long since lost the clue; for the Egyptians held the Leek as
sacred, and it was worshipped by the ancient Syrians. From whatever
source it arose, there can be no doubt as to the antiquity of the
custom, and the Welsh

"Still remember David's Day,
In wearing of a leek."

It is spoken of by Shakspeare as an "ancient tradition, begun upon an
honourable aspect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased
valour." In his play of "Henry V." the Leek is frequently mentioned.
Fluellen, a gallant Welsh soldier, always wore it in his cap
on St. David's Day, and being in consequence ridiculed by the braggart
Pistol, on an occasion when he could not resent an insult, takes the
first opportunity of doing so, by compelling Pistol to eat a Leek,
remarking, "If you can mock a Leek, you can eat a Leek!" May everyone
who would tamper with national traditions, and arouse national
animosities, whether they wear the Shamrock or wear the Leek, ever want
the wherewithal in which to "drown" the former on St. Patrick's Day,
and be ignominiously necessitated to cat the latter on the anniversary
of St. David.

﻿

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